Message from America

I went to a Scottish Enterprise event about how easy it is to do business in the USA. And, surprise, surprise it turns out it's rather hard - or at least painful. Luckily, I have no desire to work in the USA, but I got plenty of information to (hopefully) put off some of the people I work with.

If you do any work there you have to file a federal tax return and then claim exemption under a tax treaty. Every state has its own income and sales tax, which you have to file and pay separately. And if anything goes wrong, you're likely to be sued even if it's clearly not your fault. If it sounds grim, that's because it is.

I never thought about how easy it was to do business in Europe, but it is. Comparatively.